www.sporthull.co.uk/hullfc/news/ ... ticle.html Give him his due.

www.sporthull.co.uk/hullfc/news/ ... ticle.html Give him his due.

and he is admitting that it is 'his' squad .

Well its his squad because he is taking some of the blame but its nice to finally hear from someone at the club exactly what the fans have been saying for two years.

ah, the "it wasn't me, it was him defence" excellent.

And of course Agar had absolutely no input into retention/recruitment in the last few years.

On a par with the 'Deny everything Baldrick' stance.

Whatever you say about Agar, he is the first coach in the last 10 years to have to the balls to make bid decisions about players, he is also the only coach in the last few years to identify what areas we are lacking and recruit the players in those positions.

I still doubt his coaching ability, but I feel he deserves a chance next season.

no-one can deny injuries have played a major part in your recent fall from grace tho.....sure all teams get them but you've had more than your fair share.

Yup, it doesn't explain our lack of tactical ability, his rediculous rotation of props (or otherwise) and other bizarre decisions during games.

Not sure where he said any of that ? Where does he absolve himself of any blame ?

What he says in that article is exactly right however there are some bits missing. He should have added that the players failed to show the level of technical ability (passing/tackling/support) required on a consistent enough basis for the standard of SL. I hope he realises that because different personnel or not next year he and his coaching team need to turn out players capable of performing these fundamentals to a much better standard week in week out.

Though he does admit it has taken nearly three seasons for a replacement for Cooke to be found.

As for 'big' decisions regarding players , in particualar releasing them that of course is somewhat governed by their contractual status.
Though he has done the right thing IMO of getting rid of King.

What are these ‘big’ decisions he has made? Most of his ‘axe wielding’ fell on either players that have long term injuries or those that have come to the end of their contracts anyway (and nobody in their right mind would have renewed them). Other then possibly King (who is still contracted to the club) what ‘big’ decisions has he made?

As for next season the signings have the potential to provide a ‘quick fix’, but for me there is still a hell of a lot of rebuilding to be done.

You mean players like King, Thacks, G horne and Lee. Who have all had there contracts renewed by previous coachs?

All the players above should have gone a couple of years ago and at least Agar hasnt kept them.

I think the squad Agar has put together is on paper the best we have had in years, better than 2005 and 2006 (where we had success).

The problem is are our coaching staff good enough to use the squad to it's full effect?

Guess we will find out next season

That is what has harmed us over the last couple of seasons, not replacing Cooke, none was really Agars fault, think he wanted Dobson, but the board wouldnt pay the money, other coachs have signed replacements but have been injury prone.

As said above these average players have been out of contract before and the previous coachs have chosen to keep them, Agar has at least starting to get rid of the average players in our sqaud that other coachs have failed to do.

The release of players is more likely down to Crocker not coming over, giving us money on this years cap to be able to do so.

Why has it taken to the end of the season for this to come out? We could see that there were problems from game 6 (and to a certain extent, although masked by the 100% record, before then).

Surely this:

"Got its approach to player recruitment wrong in recent seasons, leading to an unbalanced squad.
Was left with a team lacking 'seniority, experience, leadership and quality'
Failed to find a suitable replacement for Paul Cooke following his move to Hull KR.
Should have made the play-offs this season, despite the injuries suffered."

is in some part due to Agar himself given that he's been there for a good few years? Has he had no say in player recruitment? Can he not provide leadership? Did he not ask for the club to find a replacement for Cooke?

Raises more questions than answers. Very disappointing.

It hasn't. These issues have been discussed on here and elsewhere ad infinitum. Maybe the coach didn't think it appropriate to be criticising his team in public in this way during the regular season in the local press ? That's a fair stance by a coach to take in my view



Regarding Cooke didn't we try Adam Dykes and Matt Head ? Neither successful although they did show a glimpse of what could happen playing a good half back in the team.

Also I really can't see where this idea that he is absolving himself of blame comes from. Where does he say it isn't in part down to him ?

It doesn't and I never said he was.

Surely Dykes and Head were SHs when Cooke was a SO/LF. So they weren't actually his replacements were they?

Criticism of an underperforming team is perhaps not the right thing I agree, but what else can he do? Doing nothing in public had a fantastic effect - I'm looking forward to us competing in the play offs. Oh wait...

matty head was a great player just injury prone same as dykes...but theres one differance between the two...dykes left the club with only good words to say about us but on the other hand head thinks the board are a bunch of winkers for what they did to peter sharp can you beleive...and that 100% genuine aswell....from the horses mouth

Apologies it was this bit of your post:



that I misinterpreted as you thinking he thought he was not in part to blame.



Cooke was the ball player on one side of the field and Horne on the other. Not really sure whether who puts the ball in the scrum these days is all that relevant. Head and Dykes were chief field kickers (as was Cooke) and were pivots on the side of the field that Cooke used to be so I would say they were attempts at his replacements.



He was critical of the teams performances in a general fashion during the season (and who wasn't ?

) but this article basically says that he didn't have the right players. There is a difference.

No worries - I wasn't letting him off, they were rhetorical questions as he must have been involved.




Fair enough, but they were different types of players, more in the Horne mould imho, with Horne himself possibly taking the Cooke role and it didn't work. Was there a plan B?



True and the whole Crocker/Hame thing didn't help. But a decent coach should be able to get a decent performance out of his players.

Matt head rang the hull daily mail after leaving the club, and wanted to sell a story telling all about the bad within the club - the HDM said no

Couldn't agree more and in my first post in the thread I say as much. I think he's lucky to be still in the job tbh. He will be under massive pressure for the first 3 months of next season. Make or break for him I would have thought.

Indeed, the problem will be if any alternatives are available, or if we simply "promote from within" again, which is my biggest concern.

If he goes then we simply MUST replace him with a top coach from outside end of.